Foreign Correspondence

[fuagf]

Security in short supply, especially for poor
Rowan Callick .. The Australian
January 09, 2010

f prev.: Interestingly, the Chinese term for “crisis”—weiji—combines characters denoting “danger” and “opportunity.” Fittingly, as Beijing grapples with the current North Korean crisis, China’s hopes for improved relations with Washington, a greater leadership role in the region, and a stable Korean Peninsula will be tested in momentous and difficult ways.

IT is hard to find places that have become safer rather than more troubled during the past year. But the Taiwan Strait is one.

China still has 1000 or so missiles pointing at the island it regards as a recalcitrant part of its own country, but the relationship between the two governments has warmed impressively, to the extent that leaders of the People's Republic no longer refer publicly to their right to reconquer Taiwan by force. Tourists travel both ways and Taiwan's massive investment in China is starting to be complemented by Chinese funds buying into Taiwan businesses.

There's also Northern Ireland. In 2009, diehard republicans attempted through violence to re-ignite the fires of sectarian hostility. But they failed, instead reinforcing the unlikely government that unites Paisleyites and IRA veterans.

Related Coverage
We've left Taiwan out in the cold The Australian, 26 Oct 2009
KEVIN Rudd is coming under pressure over China relations again -- this time from a fresh and formidable source: Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou, who some Asian media said should have won the Nobel Peace Prize for defusing tensions in the Taiwan Strait.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/weve-left-taiwan-out-in-the-cold/story-e6frg7e6-1225791460373

The main element of comfort for us is that our part of the world is probably the least violent. Most of the Asia-Pacific countries enjoyed, with Australia, economic growth in 2009. The International Monetary Fund expects this to ramp up to 5.75 per cent this year.

While there is no certainty in the correlation between economic optimism, peace and stability, it does seem to help.

The elements are of course beyond our control. But certain areas of the world are clearly more earthquake-prone than others.

The terrible quake in Sichuan, southwest China, that killed 68,000 people in May 2008 occurred on a well-documented fault line, for instance. The rim of fire around the Pacific sadly encompasses some of the most beautiful places in the planet, favourites for Australian holidaymakers.

Typhoons are more predictable. They usually hit our own Queensland coast and the Pacific islands, as well as the east coast of Africa, from November to April, Southeast Asia from May to November, north India from April to June and again from September to November, and the Atlantic and Caribbean from June to November.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade provides, of course, clear guidance about the dangers of travelling to and within certain countries. It advises against travelling at all to Afghanistan, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Guinea, Iraq, Somalia and Sudan. Kevin Rudd visited Afghanistan last year, but the others look unlikely targets for travel in 2010.

The DFAT advice, in its second most severe tier of warnings, says Australians should reconsider their need to travel to Algeria, Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Haiti, Honduras, Indonesia, Lebanon, Madagascar, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Yemen and Zimbabwe.

Indonesia, which springs out of the list as an aberration, is enjoying considerable success through its democratisation and rapid economic growth. It is one in which of course a tiny fragment of fanatics killed three Australians last July, in Jakarta. But the mastermind of this and previous bombings, Malaysian Noordin Top, was tracked down by excellent Indonesian police work and killed in September.

Mao Zedong said successful guerillas are fish "swimming in the water" of popular support, as exemplified in the Vietnamese struggle against the French and then the Americans. Those are especially dangerous places, especially for visitors who may be viewed, albeit wrongly, as collusive with the enemy.

The battle for hearts and minds is thus crucial. In Indonesia, it is being won, but in some of the other places on those DFAT lists the outcome remains in doubt.

Sixteen of these 26 countries in both lists are in Africa. That underlines the extent to which a nexus of corruption, collapsed governance, aid dependence, tribalism and in some cases Islamist extremism are conspiring to hold much of the continent down, despite its gradual shift towards economic growth, usually the only reliable formula for improving living standards.

Not a few Australians, as usually indefatigable flyers, will have paid anxious attention to the case of the "underpants bomber" who almost destroyed a plane landing at Detroit on Christmas Day. But DFAT also stresses we're not always safe travelling by sea either: "There are high levels of piracy in coastal areas of many countries. Kidnapping for ransom can also occur. There is a worldwide risk of attacks on vessels at sea and in port by terrorists and pirates."

The Horn of Africa is, however, the current focus of concern, with Somali pirates this year pressing claims to membership of the Evil Rich List, earning massive incomes from seizing ships and hostages.

Missing from DFAT's list is Iran, where persisting demonstrations against the regime are increasingly being repressed violently. Its cocktail of zealous Islamism, anti-Semitic rants, economic chaos and development of nuclear weapons capacity is particularly alarming.

If domestic opposition continues, the regime's leaders may be tempted to seek to cement their core support by stepped-up foreign incursions, already being waged by their proxies elsewhere in the Middle East and beyond.

Insert: Hmmmm, well The Australian is a Murdoch (Palin supporter now) paper.

The UN is unlikely to register concern, with both China and Russia reluctant to move
against Iran, so Tehran may keep pushing its envelopes while it meets little resistance.

The Israel-Palestine stand-off remains unresolved, with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu having made what he perceives as important concessions without garnering a sufficiently positive response from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for talks to start. But ultimately Israel needs to find a negotiating partner who can talk for the bulk of the Palestinian community. The contrast between the economic boom in the Palestinian areas dominated by Abbas with the poverty of the Hamas-controlled Gaza may ultimately provide the motive for a shift in this direction. But in the meantime, there is still much danger here.

Despite a general decline in violence, terrorists in Iraq have persuaded people to blow up especially big suicide bombs in recent months. This is largely due to the imminence of the country's national election on January 30.

At the previous poll, many among the country's large Sunni minority abstained. The bombing campaign appears designed to convince even more to stay away this time, and thus help the Shi'a majority to elect a government whose credibility can be questioned. A well-run poll with a convincing turnout may start to wear down the violent remnant.

Zimbabwe is entering an especially dangerous period as it is in the throes of an outrageously reluctant regime change.

President Robert Mugabe, whose penurious nation will fork out heavily to celebrate his 86th birthday next month, is giving the elected Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai little room to move. Mugabe may wish to provoke further mayhem around the time of the soccer World Cup in midyear, making life especially awkward for his chief international backer, South Africa's new President Jacob Zuma, who is also the tournament host.

The most entrenched trouble-spot remains Kashmir, mostly within India but bitterly coveted by Pakistan.

The Caucasus, where nations have emerged, or re-emerged, comparatively recently from the disintegration of the Soviet Union, contains many dangerous zones, still including Georgia and secessionist South Ossetia, where violence erupted during the 2008 Olympic Games, a time that traditionally sees a cessation of wars. But - fingers crossed - we predict that we may survive 2010 without seeing an old-fashioned military invasion of one neighbour by another.

If we may also leave to one side, for now, global warming - which is capable of making many politicians extremely hot under the collar, but may not otherwise be viewed as a clear and present danger - the dominant threat to global security remains Islamist extremism, because its cause is non-negotiable. All must come within the caliphate or perish.

Insert: They could have said "remains Islamist extremism" and it's causes, but remember The Australian is owned by Rupert.

And the centre of gravity of its most zealous adherents is shifting to Europe, which is not yet registering near the top of the danger zones for 2010 but is already on the watch list. That the underpants bomber spent core student years at London University is no coincidence.

Insert: Oh! the most zealous adherents of extreme, violent Islam are no longer in Pakistan. That's Murdoch news.

It is not yet clear that European decision makers have any idea how to handle this challenge. But it is one, ultimately, that will have to be decided by the umma, by the world's Islamic community - which still seems, at times, to be unsure whether violent zealots are displaying cruel, blasphemous inhumanity or ultimate piety.

Meanwhile, the cities many would want to avoid according to their murder rate, include the Mexican city bordering the US, Ciudad Juarez, with 130 murders last year per 100,000 inhabitants; Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, with 96; New Orleans, US, with 95; Tijuana, another Mexican border city, with 73; and Cape Town, South Africa, with 62.

But within these cities, as in most other places of danger, it is the people who live there - and especially,
the poorer people there - who face the greatest threats, not visitors, whether prime ministers or tourists.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/security-in-short-supply-especially-for-poor/story-e6frg6z6-1225817480815

Yep, thank you, Rupert, you just forgot to mention your contribution to the creation of more poor people, wherever you exist.